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Massive Study Searching For Genes Behind Intelligence Finds Little
An anonymous reader writes: It's been taken for granted that science would, one day, figure out what parts of our DNA make us smart (or not). But a huge new study done by a group of almost 60 researchers using genome data on over 100,000 people has come up empty-handed. The scientists first looked for differences in the genome that correlated with academic achievement. After narrowing it down to 69 individual sites, they gave cognitive tests to separate group of 24,000 people and looked for evidence of difference at those same locations (abstract). Most of the sites weren't significantly different from chance — the (already weak) genetic influence of genes on height has an effect 20 times greater. On top of that, the three gene locations that did seem to have a stronger correlation weren't involved in development of the nervous system.
The genes are obviously smart enough to hide from researchers.
self-made *gasp* one-percenters?
There's no such thing. Everyone with that kind of wealth either inherited it or got extremely lucky. Its not possible to become mindbogglingly wealthy through hard work and diligence; there's no such thing as a "self-made millionaire".
I was about to post something similar. The spin is quite strange given the reading of the abstract.
FWIW, I believe the original study that identified the 3 SNPs in educational attainment is here, but as mentioned it's a very weak statistical correlation as it only contributes to about 1 additional month of schooling on average. Also the assumption that the genes vary in terms of SNPs is also a big assumption which may be false too.
Basically, they seem to be mostly saying it's unlikely that a small mutation (because that's what a SNP is mostly) that was selected/amplified by evolution can determine our intelligence. That's really baby steps in this question.
Perhaps some sort of DNA methylation which is correlated with in-utero nutrition levels interacts with the underlying DNA expression somehow that is a better proxy for what we think of as intelligence (which is only weakly correlated with academic achievement). If so, we probably aren't going to find it by this technique at all. Kinda makes this total non-news in my book.
I've got great news for you... you're already a big dick.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways